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The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) has posed liability risks for hospitals for many years, but EMTALA obligations have been limited mainly to the emergency department (ED). Now a recent decision by a federal district court in Texas suggests that the law could be applied much more broadly to inpatients as well.
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In response to news about a possible program that would encourage patients to report medical errors, eight U.S. congressmen wrote to Carolyn Clancy, MD, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, to express their concerns.
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Under the plan proposed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), patients and their relatives would report medical errors and near misses through a web site and in telephone interviews.
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News: A woman prematurely gave birth to an infant in 2002. The womans labor was induced, and she experienced a prolonged vaginal birth. The fetus was under distress during delivery.
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News: The patient was a 45-year-old woman who had been experiencing chest discomfort. Her primary care physician told her to obtain a complete heart check-up at the hospital.
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Researchers are finding that a specific spectrum of ultraviolet light kills drug-resistant bacteria and other problem pathogens on common environmental surfaces, including door handles and bedside tables and rails in hospital rooms.
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No specific infection control breach has been identified in the death earlier this year of a 25-year-old research laboratory associate at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco.
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Martin A. Makary, MD, MPH, an associate professor of surgery and health policy at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD is the author of the recently published book "Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care."
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In findings that may set a new standard of care in intensive care units, researchers demonstrated in a large-scale trial that a combination of daily chlorhexidine baths and a five-day regimen of nasal mupirocin reduced bloodstream infections (BSIs) for all pathogens by a staggering 44%.
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Influenza poses a rare but real risk of fatal infection in otherwise healthy children, a Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention epidemiologist reports.
